Community // Stronger Together

Opening: Unity and Community

• Pastor Jonathan opened with Psalm 133, emphasizing that God blesses His people when they live in unity.
• He connected this to the church’s community series, reminding everyone that spiritual growth happens best in relationships, not isolation.

A Church Family Conversation

• Pastor Jonathan explained that this message was more like a family meeting than a typical sermon.
• The purpose was to openly share where the church has been, where it is now, and where he believes God is leading it.

The Mission and Expanded Vision

• He reminded the church of its mission: “Know Jesus, Show Jesus.”
• Recently, he sensed God giving an expanded vision for the church, including:
• deeper spiritual formation
• stronger community and relationships
• caring for the broken, poor, and struggling
• continued investment in kids, youth, and young adults

The Church’s History and Burden

• Pastor Jonathan shared the difficult history of the church property, including past tragedy, scandal, and major debt.
• He honored Pastor Mike Gouldsway, who faithfully helped rebuild and stabilize the church over many years.
• Despite progress, the church still carries a heavy financial burden, including about $30,000 per month in mortgage payments.

The Current Challenge

• The church’s vision and financial reality are now in tension.
• To fully pursue the vision, the church likely needs either:
• to become debt-free, or
• to find a different property solution.

What Leadership Is Considering

• Leadership is exploring ways to generate income, including renting parts of the property.
• They are also open to the possibility of selling the current building if God leads in that direction.
• Pastor Jonathan emphasized that the church is not the building—it is the people.

What This Does NOT Mean

• The church is not closing.
• The church is not in crisis.
• Instead, leadership is trying to be faithful and proactive before problems arise.

The Spiritual Response

• Referencing Jeremiah 29, Pastor Jonathan said the church will continue faithfully doing ministry where it is until God clearly changes something.
• The church will trust God for a miracle, whether that means staying, moving, or another unexpected provision.

How the Church Can Respond

• Pray for wisdom, unity, and provision.
• Continue partnering through serving, giving, and participation.
• Invite others into what God is doing.
• Use personal connections and resources to help further the mission.

Closing Encouragement

• Pastor Jonathan acknowledged the weight of leadership but reminded the church that this is Jesus’ church.
• The church will continue worshiping, growing, and serving while trusting God to guide the future.
• He closed by encouraging the church to walk forward together in faith and radical obedience.

Church, good morning. Oh man, worship was good this morning.

Hey, anyone else get surprised by daylight savings this morning? Just listen, when I say I got surprised, I mean I had no clue.

Like, if it weren't for the fact that your phone auto changes, your boy would be showing up about now really confused about what was going on and how you guys were already having church without me.

And so I thought I was struggling to wake up this morning, but then I also think it's the strat because now I tricked myself. I hadn't been dreading it all week, and now I'm just like, whoops, I did it. Look at me. Sometimes we accidentally do hard things.

Hey, stand with me. Let me read a verse for you this morning. A couple of verses, actually. It's a whole chapter, but don't get excited because it's only three verses.

Psalms 133 says, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down the beard, running down Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion, for there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.”

Father God, we just thank you for this opportunity to be here together. Lord, we just thank you for your love, your mercy, and your grace. Lord, we just invite your presence here into this place. And we thank you that your Spirit is moving in our hearts and minds today. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

All right, you may be seated. You may be seated.

All right, well hey, listen. We are continuing our series that we started last week. We started last week a series on community. And this week will be a little different. I’ll tell you why here in a second.

But last week, if you weren’t here, we talked about our need for relationships. And this is not just like, oh, me telling you you need relationships, but we set up the biblical ideal and principle of why we need relationships, and how more so than ever we are in a battle, a cultural battle, where we are going against radical individualism that we see in our Western world.

And that so partners with the enemy’s desire for us to feel alone and to feel isolated and to feel like we don’t have anyone around there, whereas God’s desire is for us to be adopted into his family, to become sons and daughters of God, to have Jesus be our elder brother, and not only to be adopted into his family, but to realize that in our Christian ethic, in our Christian worldview, and in our Christian churches, we also find ourselves to have family that we are now related to under the new adoption that God has invited us into.

And how important it is for us to have our physical families, but also to have those people that we call family and invite to be brothers and sisters and who we have deep, intimate relationships with. And we talked about the need for either familial or spiritual relationships in which we can have depth in our relationships, that we can be vulnerable with each other, and that we can have a commitment to transformation in our lives and in each other, and that invitation, and how important that is for us in our spiritual formation. Because so often, our growth is done in the context of community, in the context of unity with those people who we consider close, our intimate friends. It’s such an important thing.

And so that’s kind of the really quick recap of where we’re at. And so, like I said, today is gonna be a little bit different because we’re carrying the spirit of that, because today we as a church, we almost have to have, like I think about it, maybe you do this, sometimes when we’ve got something going on in our house or some kind of big things or decisions or different things that are going on, we have to have like a family meeting.

Anyone ever have to have a family meeting? Anyone grow up with those family meetings? And here’s the thing: what I found is if you have family meetings relatively frequently, it’s not a big deal because you’re just like, oh, it’s a family meeting. But if you rarely have family meetings and it’s only whenever something really crazy happens, then all of a sudden you’re like, oh God, family meeting. And that’s the whole thing.

And so we’ve had family meetings. We haven’t called them that, but we do that. Today is like a family meeting. And I feel a little bit bad because I know, I’m wrong, I don’t know for a fact, but I’m sure, I assume, that there’s someone here, or someone’s here, who this is maybe your first time here, your first time in a long time. And it’s like, hey, this service, what we’re talking about today is a little, it’s not normal. It’s not what we normally do because it’s not like a normal sermon. Like I said, it’s like a family meeting.

And you may be like, oh, this is a lot more because I’m not in the family. And I could feel bad about it, but then I also wanted to, I was thinking about it this morning, I’m like, you know what? It’s okay. I’m just gonna embrace it because if you’re here, I believe God has you here for a reason, that there’s a purpose that you’re here today.

But not only that, if you want to see what it looks like to be part of that family, most people come to church because they’re thinking, maybe I want to see what this church is like. If you want to see what it looks like to be part of this family, to hear about where we’ve been, to hear about what God’s put on our heart, of where we’re going and some of the things that we’re inviting God to help us overcome and be like, this is the type of family that you’re invited into. There’s this family in which we are open and we share these things with each other and what we’re walking through.

And if you’re like, ooh, I actually don’t like that, well, good to know now, right? Like, hey, you know what? I figured it out real early. I didn’t need to waste a lot of time. I figured it out really quick. But maybe you sit there and say, hey, I actually like that. So here’s what I want to start with.

Toward the end of last year, October of last year, I was praying. And many of you guys know this, we have a mission. When Vivian and I transitioned into the lead role here at the church, shortly after that, God really just stirred in our heart kind of like the mission, the vision that we had as a church moving forward in this next season of the church. And I’ll talk a little bit about our history and where we came from.

And our slogan, right, is something that most of you know, or many of you know, which is the idea of know Jesus, show Jesus, that we have a deep desire for people to be in an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus so that as they know him, they’re transformed by him. And as they’re transformed by him, they begin to be able to show him in their community and in their world more and more profoundly.

And so since that happened, it’s been about seven and a half years since that transition happened. And in that time, we as a church, we as a staff, as serve teams, as everything, we have been taking every single thing that we have and we’ve been filtering it through that mission. And we’ve been saying, okay, how do we get our small groups to move in that direction? How do we get our serve teams to move in that direction? How do we get kids’ church and youth and DK to move in that direction? How do we continue to build certain areas of our church up so that we can move in this direction of knowing Jesus and showing Jesus, both here within these walls, but also within our families, and then expanding out into the community and the reality that God has for us?

And so we’ve been walking through that as a journey for a long time. And it takes, some of you guys know, I’m not a very patient person. I like things to go real fast, and the faster the better. And this has been a journey. This invitation of these types of changes and these types of cultural shifts, these kinds of identity shifts, they take a long time to finally see it. And we have been seeing the fruitfulness of this, especially in the last year, of just seeing the effectiveness of people understanding the mission, understanding the thing, as we’ve been walking through this spiritual formation journey as well.

And seeing this extra piece of like, hey, we want each individual to grow in their relationship with God personally, and to see the hunger that our church has had and the experiences have been so encouraging and so beautiful.

And at the end, so all that’s been happening, and at the end of October last year, I was praying and God began to speak to me about not new vision, but expanded vision for our church, right? Expanded idea, like an expanded thing that he wants to do out of knowing Jesus and showing Jesus.

And listen, I believe God speaks to all of us very regularly. I believe we can hear the voice of God, but I also know that there’s certain times that he speaks to us especially. And that gets a moment where it’s like, hey, this is an important moment. And I only have a few moments in my life that I can really look to and say, this was God. And this was one of those moments, that God really spoke to me about this vision. Because I’d been on a journey, I don’t have time for all the backstory, but God really wanted me to help understand where he sees and where we should see our church going over the next few years.

And so here’s a couple of them. I’m gonna read you some bullet points, right? And I have a, it did not format very well. Word formatting really bothers me. But YouVersion, if you follow the notes, you can see that this is in there. You can read this for yourself. Like I said, the format—don’t judge me for the format. I don’t like it, okay? Some of you guys, you know what I’m talking about. You notice, I like all my indentions, and that didn’t work, and that made me angry. But it’s okay. I’m gonna get over it. Maybe I’ll post it on the website where it’s a better format.

But here’s the thing. This is the thing that God says: that we are a church that’s dedicated to the mission of helping people know Jesus and show Jesus; that we long as a church to grow in spiritual maturity individually, not just a few people; and that we become a hub for spiritual formation and growth, where people come to our church, to Destiny, with that purpose and intention. They come to our church because, like, I want to go to that church because I want to grow, and I want to be challenged, and I want to grow in my understanding of God and knowledge. And sometimes people are coming for long term, sometimes people are coming for short seasons, just with that intention. That we are a church that’s fully committed to having friends and community, in which we can share lives, ups and downs, and love, and openness, and prayer. That we can show the love of God to a broken world.

That we individually can engage in the mission of personally reaching our ones, those who are far from God, each as an individual and also as a church. As a church, we have resources for what we would consider the poor among us. That we can have resources for single parents who need help and understanding in financial ideas, time, education, and partnership. For the orphans in the foster system, that we can have resources to meet physical needs and to provide and invest for children and foster parents, to help with education, to be a place where we have people who are partnering in the adoption and fostering process and resources.

For people who are struggling with addiction, for both those who are struggling with addiction and those who are in the process of loving people who are struggling in addiction, that we can raise money to help in that process and even build recovery houses where people can go into long-term care to find their journey changed throughout that process.

For people who are struggling with mental health, so that we have resources for counseling, that we can partner with professional counselors. And even, I have a desire to have a full-time counselor here that’s at the church who just has the ability to walk through people when we walk through issues and what that mental health looks like. To be able to bridge the gap between mental and spiritual health, and realize that these things are not separate. These are the things that God calls us to walk through together in the partnership, that we are not just brains that are floating around in existence, but we are also bodies and spirits that all need to be unified under his love and his goodness.

We want to partner in to be able to love and embrace the immigrant who’s among us. For resources and training in healthcare and education for the poor and the homeless, to be able to find the ability to get education, temporary housing, freedom from addiction and mental health. We think these are important.

We want to continue our commitment to reach the next generation for Jesus, that we want our youngest kids to be safe and to have the ability to grow in understanding of love. I have the desire to be able to take care of more children who have special needs, who need a special facility because their unique circumstances don’t allow them to be in class with everyone else, but I still want to be able to love those children well, and the parents well.

To be able to fully equip not just the childcare, but the sharing of the good news of Jesus, and to have plenty of volunteers who want to partner in that mission. In our DK, I want to have a facility that actually represents our heart and our value that we put on that age group. Have the resources to be able to invite and draw in activities that draw kids into proximity with those who show Jesus, and an atmosphere of both fun and learning and spiritual growth. And I believe you can do all three at the same time.

In our youth group, I have a desire to have more ability to have events and resources and grow in our outreach for them so that Jesus can show up and move, for the people who invest in youth, for deep connections that lead to spiritual decisions and growth, and a safe and honest space for teens to come and to grow and seek and ask questions, and to grow the size and the impact of what our youth group is doing.

I have a desire for a group, and I know and I see God doing something in this already, of these young adults. Young adults are the most at-risk people to walk away from the faith, 18 to 30. The statistics are awful. And maybe it’s because I just stepped into having an 18-year-old and all of a sudden I’m like, wait.

But I see us being able to be a place in which we can have a thriving young adult group who can come and be connected and realize that the place that they have is still a journey, but this church is a place where they’re still welcome. And that requires time and staff and money and events and small groups and support and coffee and lunches and meals and open hearts and accountability and challenges and making them feel like they have a place at church. It’s actually the hardest age group to minister to.

It’s the hardest age group because they’re adults and they think they know what they’re doing. They haven’t learned yet that they don’t know what they’re doing like the rest of us adults. And so it’s hard. It’s hard to love them well, and it takes a lot. It takes a lot. I know I needed it a lot at that age.

And God has put this, and there’s more, of what I see our church being. And here’s the thing. We have this picture. God has put this picture. It’s very clear. And here’s what’s amazing, by the way: in executing all of this, this isn’t me doing it. It’s not even the staff doing it. It’s our church doing it.

It’s leadership here, it’s you, it’s people within this church who say, “Hey, there’s this need, and I want to help serve in this need and to reach in this community.” And whatever age group that is, we are the church who is able to be a church body who comes and serves and worships, not just on Sunday, but all seven days a week, that we’re able to do this.

And we have, and some of you know this story and some of you don’t, but we as a church have some history and some obstacles that make the vision that God is showing us a challenge to become reality. That we have a long history on this property and a long history of what we have to walk through, of things where we would need God to show up directly to be able to make those things happen.

And none of that should scare us, and none of this has changed, because the truth is, almost every time—I can’t actually think of an exception—that God calls someone to step out in vision, it looks very impossible in the moment that you’re in. Always. And what it requires is faith that God can do the impossible.

When God called Abraham and Sarah, he told two old farts, “You’re gonna have children.” When God told Peter to get out of the boat and walk, that had never happened before. When Jesus said, “Lazarus, come out of that tomb,” everyone else looked at him like he was crazy. When he told that little girl she was just asleep, everyone laughed.

When God puts a vision in your heart, often you look around and say, “That’s impossible. That can’t happen.” Or there’s things that prevent that from happening.

And in this case, in this scenario, there’s no difference. Some of you guys know this, some of you don’t. This is like the Reader’s Digest—I don’t even think I can call it the Reader’s Digest version. I don’t think anyone reads Reader’s Digest anymore. It really dates me. I only read it on the toilet, but that was my go-to read. You guys know what I’m talking about. People admire that. You know what I’m talking about. It’s like, “Oh, I can get a couple quick shorts in.” I was mostly there for the jokes.

But here’s the thing. This church, Destiny Church, is here, but we’re not even the first church that’s been here on this property, right? There’s actually been two churches before, and both of those churches ended in tragedy. One ended with the moral failure of the pastor, another ended with a plane crash in which the pastor died. And it resulted in both those churches closing down.

And then this church was purchased in the mid-to-late 90s by the person who actually founded Destiny Church as we exist today, which is called—his name was Eastman Curtis. Some of you guys know because some of you guys were here. Some of you guys were like, “On the launch group?” A couple of you. They’re old.

And he started this church, and he took over this property from the church that had collapsed and had an ideal. And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know Eastman Curtis. I’ve met him one time. I came and visited in high school because a bunch of my friends came here, and they were like, “You gotta check it out, it’s really cool.” And I came, and then I went to the green room because they told me there were cookies.

And that was the only reason I went to the green room. But I knew I was gonna have to, because I’d grown up in the church, like I knew the game. I was like, man, to get a cookie, I’m gonna have to sign something and shake someone’s hand. And I was like, how bad do I want this cookie? And I was like, I want the cookie. I want the cookie. So I went back and I did it. That’s all I know. I don’t know, I’ve never talked to him other than that, which was just to get a cookie.

And so I don’t know any of his heart’s intention, but I assume when he started this church, his heart’s intention was so that people who didn’t know Jesus could know Jesus.

And he started as a gifted speaker, and he was a gifted evangelist, and people were coming to Christ. And I have really good and dear friends who were saved at this church from really desperate, horrible situations, and their life was changed under his leadership. But unfortunately, his leadership was deeply flawed, and his accountability was nonexistent.

And his fame and his growth and his money all outgrew his character and his ability to handle those things. And the long story short of what we found was another church that was broken by scandal, a pastor who had had multiple moral failures and infidelities, and then as if that wasn’t enough, one who had acquired $9.5 million worth of debt for a church that was only valued at $4 million.

Now you think it’s bad to be upside down in a car payment. It’s way worse to be $4.5 million upside down and alone. And he did it in secret because he got a loan over here and he got bonds over here, and all of a sudden it was like, I got it all. And it was the 90s. You could do that back then. We still had like the thing on the credit card. No one knew what was going on. You just had to work your timing.

And all of a sudden, this community that was growing and thriving—and by the way, this building we’re sitting in was in the process of being constructed—but was frozen because the money was being mismanaged so poorly, there was no money. And it got stopped.

And then, and this breaks my heart, in the middle of this construction project, it wasn’t being run well. Someone had an accident in a piece of equipment right here on the stage, and he died right there. And we got sued as a church with a wrongful death lawsuit, and OSHA shut our project down, and money was just being siphoned out all over the place because leadership wouldn’t be transparent and honest with where we were, so they completely hid everything from the church, and the church had no clue what was going on.

This is how bad it was in the construction process. We were paying—I’ve actually talked to the guys that were paid—we were paying electricians to come and to park their trucks outside and sit in here and play cards because we wanted the people to think that work was going on, but we didn’t actually have the money to do any of the stuff. So we just paid the guys by the hour to come sit in here and play cards. That’s the level of dysfunctional processes going on.

And then, in the middle of this, once everything comes out and it just can’t be avoided anymore, he left. He left and just said that, whatever.

And at that moment, who I consider to be the hero of this story, Pastor Mike Gouldsway, stepped in. And every person told him, said, just let it close. You’re not connected to us. You’ve only been here for six months. Just let the thing burn down, and no one cares.

But that’s not what God had for this church, and that’s not what God had for this community. And through a story of 13 years of faithfulness that I cannot even put into words, what he had to walk through, he slowly and methodically took a church that was on the brink of destruction, that was completely dysfunctional, that had no hope, and he took that church, and he was able to settle those lawsuits and renegotiate those debts and ultimately finish this building.

And at the end of his tenure, he created church and left a church that had a community that loved each other, that was open, that was honest, that created a place where people could come and feel like they were at home. And he never once hid where we were at financially. And it was hard. Guys, it was bad.

Some of you know this, but most of you don’t, that we were at such a bad place, banks were only giving us loans for two years at a time. And it was so bad, our finances were so bad and our debt was so big, the only way that they would do it is if they had something that was called a personal guarantor, which means that Pastor Mike personally, something that he never had anything to do with, something that he didn’t create on his own, he personally signed his name and said, “I promise all my past, present, and future assets that if the church fails, I will continue to pay on this loan forever.”

He did that, and he didn’t have to. Everyone told him not to do it, and he did it.

And so, time after time after time, our church went through hard times, struggles, hard issues of not having enough provision financially, and yet thriving with the people who are here. And when he transitioned, again, when he started, we were at $9.5 million in debt on a $4 million property. By the end, we were a little under $5 million in debt on about a $10 million property, so he flipped it. We flipped it, and it totally transformed.

And I know it was a hard 13 years, every moment, because church sometimes is hard, but when you’re dealing with that, it’s even harder. It’s even harder.

And then we as a church have continued to move forward and carry this vision and this culture of creating a healthy and transparent church in which we are open and honest about what we’re walking through and where we’re going and what we want to do.

But in this whole time, certain things haven’t changed. We’ve always been very restricted in our finances, very restricted in our finances because we are paying a debt that no one here took on. We’re paying that debt. And we are sitting in some of the fruitfulness over it right here. This building is amazing, and God’s been faithful.

But we’ve never been at a place where financials have thrived because we constantly, constantly, constantly are in a place where resources, finance, just dollars, are lacking. And that’s a really hard place.

And I’m, by the way, at the end of this I’m gonna tell you—well, I don’t have the date yet—but we’re gonna have like a business meeting for all you finance nerds and business people who actually care about numbers. We’ll have a meeting. We’ll get together. We’ll talk. We’ll put our glasses on. It’s gonna be great. I got spreadsheets. You’re gonna have so much fun. The other 93% of you are like, I don’t want to come. But that 7%, boy, we’re gonna have a good time.

But here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. This is the only—we pay, and this is much harder—we pay $30,000 a month for our mortgage every month. $30,000 a month.

And by the way, if you’re sitting here thinking, oh well, four, five, that was what we call a COVID loan. You remember those COVID loans, 2% interest? I snagged one of those for the church in the middle of COVID, because it was, by the way, it was. Before that we were at $39,000 a month. Right? And God’s been good and God’s been faithful, and he’s here. And he’s here.

But I tell you that story and our history, which is not all of our history, to say we’re at a place where we have certain things that are in conflict for where God’s taking us. We’re at conflict of where God’s taking us.

And what I desire, and what I believe all of you desire, is to be a church, well first and foremost, that can perform the vision that God’s given us. That’s what I want to do. That vision that God’s painted for me, that’s who I want to be. That’s what I want to spend my life on. That’s what I want to live and breathe and put all my effort and all my energy into.

And in order for our church to be able to do that fully, fully, in the natural, we need to be debt-free. We have to be able to be without this debt. It’s a crushing debt.

And so here’s the place of what that looks like. We want to be debt-free, and on top of that, we want to have a building that works for us and not the other way around. Sometimes, as some of you guys know, we sometimes have to ask our bank account and this big old building permission before we do anything. Because it’s big. And it’s a lot.

And we’ve never been a church that’s that big. That’s what’s wild. Eastman built this thing, Field of Dreams style. Their church wasn’t this big, but he knew, if I build it, they will come. And he may have been right, I don’t know.

I don’t know where the children were gonna be because he built this 1,500-seat auditorium with zero kids’ classes. It was literally like, I guess it was just singles ready to mingle. I don’t know what he was doing.

Some of you guys don’t even know, we can put 500 chairs up above there. You may not even know there’s a balcony up there. We keep it dark. That’s where the bats live.

And someone asked me, “When are you gonna finish it?” I’m like, why would I finish it? I don’t even need all the chairs I have now. And I would try to shut off the under-balcony, and listen, under-balcony people, I love you, but they’re rebellious. I could do whatever it takes and they’re still gonna get back there. It’s just how it works. It’s just how it works.

I love you, under-balcony people. That’s where I would be. I’m an under-balcony kind of guy. I was a behind-the-curtain guy at the old building, for those of you who remember.

And so here’s the thing. We want to have a facility that allows us to do the ministry that God calls us to do, not just pay debt and huge bills of a facility that’s really expensive to run. And we want a facility that we can use seven days a week to impact our community, whatever that looks like.

So let me tell you as a church, let me tell you what—and by the way, we have a board of advisors who’ve been walking on this, some of them for the entire time. They’ve been walking through this process, and there’s a lot for us to walk through and to talk through and to look at the different things. And at times it’s a real burden. I’ll be honest with you, it’s a real burden.

But here’s what we’re doing as a church. This is what we’re walking through, and this is what I’m inviting you to pray for, to utilize your resources, to partner with, and to see where we’re at.

So we are pursuing any ways that we can generate or create revenue outside of just our general coming together as a church.

As a church, we’re a very generous church. When you look at, like there’s really—and I hate looking at this because it makes me feel gross, but I guess it’s part of what I do—but when you look at statistics, there’s all sorts of statistics on average giving per person, per income, per this, per that, whatever, right? And as a church, we give above what is average for a church congregation our size because you are very generous.

But at the end of the day, you and the people who are here is how many we have. We don’t have twice as many. We don’t have three times as many. We have the number of bodies we have here. And guess what? God is adding to our number every single day.

Do you know what I get to do right after this? I get to go next door and have a delicious meal with the 20-plus families who’ve chosen to join our church in the last couple of months because it’s awesome, because God is doing things. And listen, that’s not because we’re cool. That’s not because of hype. That’s not because our Instagram is really great, because none of those things are true. I’m up here struggling to read my notes because I forgot my glasses. That’s what kind of people we are. So I’m like zooming.

We’re here because God is calling people to this place. What always is happening, God’s calling people. You’re here because God called you, and he planted you here.

And so, but as a church we’re saying, how do we generate more revenue? How do we leverage the facility that we have? So we’ve looked at all sorts, and there’s a lot of complications. Like I said, we’ll talk about some of these in the business meeting. But we’ve leveraged all things like, can we rent part of our property? Can we rent some of these things? And can we do that? We’re actually in negotiation with a potential school about renting space. There’s a lot of different things that are happening, but we’re like, how do we generate more revenue that we can ultimately utilize to help pay off the debt so we can move forward with what the kingdom of God has for us?

And how can we do that? But we’re even taking it a step further, and we’re allowing ourselves to fully open ourselves to God like, hey, whatever you want to do, whatever you want to do, because we need your touch. We need a miracle, no matter what direction we look at. And we know that you ask for—you know what we need before we even ask or think.

So one of the things that we’re also looking at is now we’re looking at, can we rent some of these facilities? But we’re even walking in the pursuit and looking at what it looks like. What if we had to sell this entire church property? What if we had to sell this entire church property and God had a different property that was even better for us?

And listen, I know for some of you, you’re like, oh gosh, I love this place. I can tell you, maybe with the exception of Pastor Mike, I don’t think anyone loves this place more than me. And it’s like that sibling. You know how you can make fun of your sisters or brothers a lot, but if anyone else does it, you’ll kick their butt? That’s me and this building.

Like, I can make fun of the roof and the electrical design and the HVAC panels. I can do all that stuff, but no one else can because I literally know where every light switch is in this place. I know where every breaker is. I know where everything is. I know the things that we have to hide from the city. I know where all this stuff is. I know where all of it is. I got history. I’ve torn down walls. I’ve built walls and then torn down that wall again, the same wall, at the same place.

I love this place. I grew up in this place. I had kids in this place. Jesus changed my life in this place. I met some of the best people I’ve ever met in this place. I baptized my children in this place. I dedicated their lives to the Lord. I wept in this place in brokenness.

This place means a lot to me, but this place is just a place. This church is more than this building, and it always has been.

Listen, I’ll just be honest with you. It’ll take a miracle of God to be able to stay here and do what he calls us to do. It’ll take a miracle of God to sell this place because I don’t know if you know this. There’s not just a lot of people out there saying, “I wonder if there’s a 1,500-seat auditorium that I can buy today.” It’s not a huge market demand.

But we’re opening ourselves and saying, “God, we’re tired of pulling and being chained to a place in the debt. So you either need to break the debt or you need to break us away from that place so we can go where you’re calling us to.” And I honestly don’t care where.

So let me tell you what this means moving forward because I’m running out of time. They’re trying to play me out like the Grammys here.

First, let me make sure that you know what it doesn’t mean. This is important. This is important.

So listen, this does not mean that we as a church are closing. Our church is not closing, okay? And it also does not mean that we are in crisis. We are making these decisions before any of these things ever happen because that’s how the Holy Spirit moves.

And in fact, when I was thinking about what’s the example of this, I was led to this verse this morning actually when I was praying, Jeremiah 29:5. This is what was happening. This was in the exile, and the Jewish people thought—they had just gotten taken to Babylon, and there were these prophets that were going around saying, “Don’t worry. It’s a short time. It’s only gonna be a little bit. You don’t have to really worry about it. Don’t worry about it.” And everyone knew, because of the prophets they had, they were gonna be there for a long time.

And what Jeremiah—they were like, “What are we supposed to do?” And what Jeremiah said was this: “Build homes and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there, do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

So here’s the thing. God made this very clear when we started going on this journey, when we started pursuing and saying, “God, whatever you have, I’m not gonna be attached.” Even though I love this place, I’m not gonna be attached. And if you’ve got another place, we’ll move to another place. If you’re gonna stay here, we’ll stay here. Whatever it looks like, Lord, because I’m interested in people knowing Jesus and showing Jesus.

But what he said is, “You keep living every day just how you are now because this is where we’re having church until all of a sudden something switches.” And then my favorite word of mine, suddenly, something may change. And suddenly we may move to a new place, or suddenly we may be debt free, or suddenly God may provide in a way that I can’t even fathom or imagine because that’s what God does.

You may have plans and think maybe it could be A or B, and God’s like, “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” You don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Bebe was sharing with me about how she just finished the book of Job, which is a real downer book. And of course only my wife could see it as the most beautiful book she’s ever read.

But you know, Job was sure he had it figured out. God, you’re either this or you’re this. There’s no other options. And God had to humble Job and be like, “Do you know what it takes to make the thunder roll or the war horse be ready for battle?” Or all these different things. Like, I created these things. I have ways that you could never understand. My goodness is greater than you could ever understand. I’m not a binary God. I’m something far greater than that.

And so we’re opening ourselves. So we are not a church that’s in crisis, and we are not a church that’s closing. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. We are a church that’s growing, but we’re a church that’s no longer gonna allow ourselves to be chained to something that is actually inconsequential.

And we’re opening ourselves up. And maybe you guys are sitting there like, “Yeah, that’s actually not that hard of a thing to do, John.” Then I don’t know why. Maybe I’m the only person who’s been holding on and struggling with this. And maybe you didn’t know any of that story. Or maybe this is your first time here and you’re like, “This church is whack.” And it’s true. We’ve always just been a group of a bunch of misfits who come together because Jesus loves us. That’s who we are.

But I will tell you what it does mean. I will tell you what it does mean. It means that now, like many other times, we’re sharing this burden together. We get to share this together, but here’s what’s amazing: we not only get to share it together, but ultimately we get to together give it to Jesus, the one who carries our burdens. But we get to understand this together.

We are not in this dire time. Listen, there’s been dire times in our church. There’s been moments. I mean, there was a time where we were like, man, it was winter, and we were like, “If we miss one snow Sunday, we’re gonna have to close the whole church.” We were that close. That’s where we were at.

And do you know what God did? The same thing he always does. He showed up and he did a miracle. And he created ways where there were no ways, just like he can create rivers in dry ground. That’s the God that we get to serve.

And you know what? I didn’t tell you then because I wasn’t confident enough to tell you that, because I felt like it was my fault. And I was embarrassed. And I’ve been honestly anxious about this message because I’ve been planning it for about six months, and I’ve been anxious for about six months about it.

Because I struggle like anyone else believing that the reason that the finances are not better or the reason that the church hasn’t tripled in size or whatever is because I’m not doing a good enough job. And I’m not telling you that to get your sympathy or for you to text me, “You’re doing a great job.” I’m not telling you that. But you could. No.

I’m telling you that because the enemy always comes to find us and to say, “You’re not enough.” But it actually is not about me. This isn’t my church. This is Jesus’ church. I already have my bride. It’s Vivi. We are the bride of Christ, and he loves us very much. And he has good things in store.

And so we are gonna continue to move forward and continue to do just like Jeremiah told the people in Israel. We’re gonna keep having church. We’re gonna keep worshiping. We’re gonna keep growing. We’re gonna keep baptizing. We’re gonna keep having babies. We’re gonna keep on dedicating them to the Lord. We’re gonna keep on having people improve. We’re gonna keep doing the thing that God has for us because that is the place that we’re in.

And at the same time, at the same time, we’re gonna look to the future and say, “God, what do you have for us? What do you have for us? There’s nothing off limits. We’re into radical obedience. We’re into radical obedience.” And that’s it.

We’re trusting that he’ll take care of the rest of it because it’ll take a miracle to stay. It’ll take a miracle to go. I just need God to do a miracle. But I’m just crazy enough to believe the one who’s been faithful to this point won’t stop now. The one who brought us to this place won’t stop.

So what can you do? Here’s a couple of things.

One, pray. Pray. I hope you already pray for this church and the staff here, but I hope you pray even more. We need your prayers. We need your belief. We need your faith. We need to come together. We need to come together.

Two, continue to partner. Continue to serve and to give and to participate because your partnership, your presence, is what makes this church who we are.

And I know that sometimes this can even seem counterintuitive, but let me tell you, invite others to join the journey because where God’s taking us is a miracle, and people want to be part of something that’s going where God’s taking them. Invite them on the journey.

And the last thing is, use any connections, use anything that you have as an individual to further the mission of the church.

And what do I mean by that? If you have a talent where you can serve in the church, serve in the church. If you happen to be like, I have this neighbor and he was just telling me yesterday that he needs to donate $4.5 million to a nonprofit to be able to get a tax write-off, and I just didn’t have any ideas what to do, now you got an idea, right?

And I say that jokingly, but in a room this size, we have so much more strength together. And maybe you know someone or maybe you need something or maybe there’s somebody who’s like, you hear and the chain—no, there was this thing that was looking to buy this thing or whatever. I don’t know what God will do. I’m just saying, we are here together and now we’re all on the same page. I got no cards left to play. You know what I know other than you don’t know where the light switches are and I do.

But we’re together in this, and we work together. And I consider it my greatest privilege to be here. I would be here over anything else because I love this place and I love you. This is where God’s called me to.

And so I don’t have the date, I told you. I told you we’re gonna have a business meeting because I know some of you are like, you got questions, but not because you’re like, I got questions for you. Although maybe you do, and that’s fine. Come on. Ask questions. I’m an open book.

But because you’re like, I want to understand so that I can figure out how we can help. So I’ve got to look at the calendar and figure out what’s a good time and be able to do it at the right moment. So forgive me for not having the date set yet. But we’ll have a date where we can come together and answer some of those questions for those of you who are business-minded. Because you know what? The answer may be right here in one of your smart little noggins, because that’s how God works. That’s how God works.

Listen, I love you, church. I’m so thankful for you. You honor and bless my life more than my words can ever share. So let me do this. Will you stand with me so I can pray for you? I know it’s a weird service. It’s not normal. But family meetings are always a little weird, you know?

If you’re one of the people joining the church, you already signed the thing. You can’t back out. It’s too late. You still have to go to lunch. Or else you’ll be removed from the Lamb’s Book of Life. It’s no big deal. It’s a contract. So let’s pray.

Father, we love you. You are so faithful. You are always more than enough, and you always have been.

Lord, I just thank you that you are doing what only you can do, that you can take all the broken pieces and make something beautiful, that you can take a little and make a lot, that you are a God of miracles, that you’ve got Jesus who’s walking with us every day, shouldering our burdens, bringing us peace, and loving us into a people who are loving.

Help us know you. Help the vision that you’re setting in front of us become a reality. And help us get out of the way when you just need to move.

We love you so much, Father. In Jesus’ holy name we pray, amen and amen.

Church, we love you. You guys are dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday, and we will see you next week. It’ll be normal. I love you, bye.